The Cisco Nexus 2000 series fabric extenders behave as remote I/O modules for a parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch. The fabric extender is essentially an extension of the parent Cisco Nexus switch fabric, with the fabric extender and the parent Cisco Nexus switch together forming a virtual modular system.

The Cisco Nexus 2000 series forwards all traffic to the parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch over 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. Passing all traffic to the parent switch allows traffic to be shaped according to policies established on the parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch with a single point of management.